> anyone who thinks that robo-Uber is going to pick them up at a bar and deliver them to their driveway in less than a number of decades is delusional

You are aware that this is literally how Waymo's existing taxi service in Phoenix works?

I am aware of the limitations, but the parts with "decades" and "delusional" are obviously overstated.

Waymo overestimates their actual capabilities. They have remote drivers in a call center to pilot the car when it gets confused. And it only works in a very tiny geographic area compared to Tesla-style solutions which work nationwide.

We'll see. I honestly (and regrettably) do not believe we'll see a taxi service without a human driver in 20 years if not significantly longer.

Honestly, what makes you think that, given that multiple corps are saying that they will have autonomous cars on the road this year?

I can see how "this year" could slip into next year under unforeseen circumstances, but when your own prediction is so far away from the collective wisdom of an entire industry sector, it sure looks like a massive case of Dunning-Krueger, so you should have a very solid argument to support your prediction.

No they're not or if they are it's with lots of caveats and limitations. In fact, Volvo, which has been one of the more aggressive companies in this space, has apparently moved back their plans. [1] I'm actually willing to believe that this space will develop faster than it looked a few years back. I note that one of the more skeptical AI researchers working on this, John Leonard, is taking a sabbatical from MIT to work on Toyota's self-driving initiative. But quicker to market is still probably at least 10-20 years. Perhaps just not "not in my lifetime" as Leonard said a few years back.

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/14/16776466/volvo-drive-me-...

I think it will go much faster than people realise, because the big blocker to infrastructure changes that make self driving easier is the fact that there are no self driving cars. Once they have a foothold somewhere, with caveats and limitations, it's much easier to convince the neighboring city that with "only a few updates to these intersections" or "just a couple of beacons" or whatever, they can have self driving taxis too.

It took close to 70 years after the wright brothers before people en-mass felt safe to fly in an iron cage at 36,000ft. So yes, AI cars "work" but you have to ask yourself if you'd let it pickup your kids. I think the answer is still 'no' for most people.

I know the statistics, and I'm still nervous about flying.

>They're all just assistive driving systems The big problem is marketing for Tesla named it autopilot and not drive assistant.

That's the main issue for me. I can't fathom why the NHTSA hasn't stepped in and told them they need to either rename it or disable it.